


and you are starry, starry, starry

by ghostbunny



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unapologetic Sappiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbunny/pseuds/ghostbunny
Summary: Anders and Garrett go for a moonlit walk along the coast.
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke
Comments: 20
Kudos: 34





	and you are starry, starry, starry

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing some Handers fluff and I've had the prompt 'kiss under a full moon' sitting in my tumblr inbox for way too long so this happened. This is so sappy, I'm warning you now. 
> 
> The title is another Joanna Newsom lyric, this time from Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

He almost misses it at first. The longer his feet carry him onwards, off the main path along the coast and deeper into the dunes, the further Anders’ mind seems to wander. At least until his eyes finally focus on that dull splash of red in the dark, the dim light of the wisp sent out ahead illuminating a small patch of embrium, sheltered beneath a wind battered tree. Anders lets out a small sigh, relieved to finally have found what he was looking for. It wasn’t the whole reason they had come out to the Wounded Coast today but he has been trying to keep an eye out for the herb all the same. He’d heard there was some growing here but had had no luck finding it earlier in the day. So, when the rest had set up camp a while ago, Anders decided to use the last hour or so of daylight to have another stab at it. 

“Oh, you found it,” comes Garrett’s voice from close behind as Anders kneels beneath the weathered tree. He wills the light to still over the patch of flowers and begins to cut away what he needs. “That’s a shame. I was quite enjoying our little moonlit stroll along the coast. Though I was beginning to question the wisdom of searching for herbs in the dark. Lovely night though it is.”

He’s right, it is a lovely night. The moon has risen quickly and now hovers high and full above them, while  Satina hangs a little lower, only visible from the highest dunes. The coast is illuminated in faint silver light, bright enough that they might have done without the wisp, had Anders not needed it to spot the tell-tale red flower of the  embrium plant he’s been  looking for. 

“I hadn’t meant for it to take so long,” Anders tells him, offering Garrett a small smile as he crouches beside him and begins to help. It hadn’t been that dark when he’d set out and he’d thought that now he could give his full attention to looking for the flowers, he’d find them easily. “But if you’re enjoying yourself, I suppose I needn’t apologise. We still have to head back to camp, if you’re not quite ready for the romantic walk to come to an end.”

Garrett grins at him. “Maybe I’ll even manage to get your full attention this time.”

There’s no bite to the teasing words so Anders just smiles back at him and replies  lightly , “It’s possible.”

He loves that glint Garrett gets in his eyes when he’s teasing, particularly when his words are aimed at Anders. There’s always something special in the looks that are reserved just for him. They might have been together for months now, seen each other every day since he moved into Garrett’s estate, but Anders has not managed to tire of it yet. He can’t imagine he ever will.

It doesn’t take them long to gather the rest of what they need. Anders fills the small satchel he’d brought with him for the purpose and gets to his feet. “I suppose we’d better head back before the others send out a search party for us.” 

He turns to leave but Garrett takes his hand and keeps him from taking more than a step. “I don’t think we need to worry about that just yet.”

Anders looks at him curiously, wondering what he has in mind. The light he’d conjured to see by still hovers nearby and casts a soft white glow, illuminating Garrett’s small smile in cool light. There’s none of the mischief Anders expects in the look he gives him but something else that draws his attention away from those they’ve left behind at camp. It’s a familiar warmth and tenderness that pulls him in and holds him in this moment. 

Then Garrett lightly tugs his hand and says, “Come on.” 

Anders soon thinks he must have misread that lack of mischief in Garrett’s eyes because the next thing he knows Garrett’s running and pulling Anders along with him. By the time he manages to pull his hand free, they’re already at the bottom of a rather large  sand  dune and Garrett is laughing, his eyes bright in the moonlight. 

Anders rolls his eyes and takes a moment to catch his breath. “Enjoyed that , did you?”

Garrett grins and shrugs his shoulders. “It’s been a while since I tried it.” He walks a few steps then sinks down onto the sand, smiling thoughtfully up at the sky. “ Did I ever tell you that we lived on the coast  for a while, back  in  Ferelden ? It was when Carver and Bethany were still young. We used to go out and play in the dunes all the time.”

Anders softens slightly at the mention of Garrett’s younger siblings, knowing well what a sore spot those memories can be for him. He’s learnt to appreciate Garrett’s willingness to talk about these things to him at all because he hadn’t always been comfortable making himself vulnerable like that. In the short time they’ve been together, Garrett’s trust in him has grown and Anders has got to know more of him than he ever thought he would. He has no intention of taking that for granted, it means too much to both of them .

“I can understand wanting to feel that carefree again,” he says gently. Anders’ own childhood, before the Circle is such a distant thing, the memory of it doesn’t feel like something that could ever have been his. Something that belonged to another boy with another name and honestly thinking of it doesn’t really bring him comfort. He’s glad that Garrett has that though. That he can look back and smile, even after everything he’s been through. He deserves that, and so much more. 

Garrett looks up at him, then holds out a hand. “Come here. And put out that light.” He nods to the wisp that has followed them down to the base of the dune. Anders raises an eyebrow and Garrett chuckles. “It’s not what you’re thinking. Tempting as  that may be.”

Anders slips his fingers into the ones held out to him and lowers himself onto the sand besides Garrett. He leans in close and murmurs. “What am I thinking?”

“Distracting thoughts,” Garrett whispers against his lips but when Anders presses forward into a kiss, he seems more than happy to let the distraction take place. It’s not long before he pulls back smiling and it’s darker now that Anders has dispelled his wisp-light but the moon above them is just enough to see by. He pulls back a little  more and tells Anders, “Lie back,” before doing so himself.

Anders complies. He looks up at the stars overhead and now he understands. The night sky stretches out above them, clear and vast and so much prettier out here on the coast than they’re used to in the city. “Let me guess,” Anders says quietly. “Something else you used to do with Bethany and Carver?”

“Yeah... and my father. He’d take us out sometimes on clear nights. He’d say it was educational but usually we'd just lie there and see who could count the most shooting stars.”

Anders smiles as he stares up into the night sky.  It’s a good memory. The sort of thing he loves hearing about from Garrett, whose childhood was so different from his own. “I used to do it too.  When I could, anyway. Maybe it’s a thing with escaped Circle mages.”

“ That  does make sense.”

Those times are a lot easier to look back on. The inevitable recaptures, less so, but the escapes themselves Anders can remember with some fondness. Though they ended with him filthy and exhausted and hungry more often than not, any taste of freedom had been worth it. And no matter how dirty or smelly or wet Ferelden could be, it was far better than being stuck in that tower day after day.

“You know, the first time I ever ran away I didn’t even think of actually stopping to appreciate it. I was so focused on getting home, so scared of getting caught and being sent back there. It was only after they caught me, I realised what a waste it had been. The next time, though, I had longer. I lay out one night and thought about how long it had been since I’d seen the sky like this. I figured I’d better appreciate it while I could . S taying escaped was always going to be a problem as long as they had my  phylactery...”  Anders stops. Because that's not what he wants to be thinking about now.  He’d much rather think about Garrett. “ It’s strange to think you could have been doing the same thing, encouraged by your father for near enough the same reasons.”

“It certainly sounds poetic.”

Anders laughs.  “Well, you know me. Always the romantic.” 

He feels Garrett’s head turn beside him and glances over to see him smiling. Anders grins back at him before turning his attention back to the stars. 

“I wish more people like us could know this feeling.”

He’s not talking about the escapes so much anymore. The sky looks beautiful but it’s more than that. It’s how here, with Garrett, he’s not having to think about what he’ll do if the  Templars find him. None of those usual fears are here with him now. Just Garrett.

He could never have had that in the  Circle.

“They will,” Garrett says and he sounds so sure of it. “You’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Anders looks up at the sky and hopes it’s the truth.

Then he lets the rest fall away. Because it truly is beautiful. All of it. He feels it with the sort of intensity that he’s only known since he merged with Justice. But all that time has sort of felt like that first escape attempt. Always with a goal in mind, always so full of that strange mix of fear and determination that he so rarely lets himself just stop and be. Even during his time with Garrett there has always been something in him that resisted that.  It would be easy to put it down to Justice but Anders isn’t sure if that’s all it is. 

Here in this place, Kirkwall is so far away. The cool sand beneath him and Garrett’s hand in his is all he feels. The slow distant lapping of the sea against the shore is all he hears. All he sees are stars and moonlit sand, and if he turns his head, there’s Garrett, lying beside him. And the sight makes his chest feel full and warm with a love he’s known for years but which still feels so new now that he finally knows it’s returned. He looks at Garrett and it might as well just be the two of them for how far away everything else feels. Something in him goes quiet and still and maybe it’s because Justice feels it too. Anders isn’t sure, but he always did have an appreciation for the unexpected beauty in this world. And what he feels for Garrett is a thing of beauty. It’s a bloody miracle after everything it’s taken to get here . Whatever it is  that's making him finally stop  and comprehend that, Anders doesn’t want to waste  another minute  figuring it  out. 

He rolls over. He has to let go of Garrett’s hand to do it but then, poised over him, he reaches up and traces a finger along his brow, past his temple and into his thick black hair. Garrett looks up at him and nothing in his expression says he isn’t every bit as content as Anders feels right now. 

“I love you,” he tells him, for the pure joy of being free to say it. 

Garrett’s smile grows warmer. “I love you, too.”

“I wish we could stay  like  this forever.” 

Garrett reaches up and pulls him down into a kiss. He tastes of sea salt and the rum he’d snagged from Isabela before they’d headed out here.  Anders falls into it, kissing slowly and thoroughly, completely lost in Garrett. 

When they pull apart, Garrett murmurs, “If it helps, I have no intention of going anywhere. Not without you. ” 

Anders nuzzles into him and mumbles against his jaw, “Good. I don’t ever want to give you up.”

Garrett threads his fingers through Anders’ hair, which he has sneakily pulled loose while they were kissing. Though Anders complains that it gets in the way, Garrett always says he loves how it looks. Anders can concede it’s worth it for the feel of Garrett’s fingers brushing the loose strands out of his face. “You won’t have to,” he murmurs with such confidence it makes Anders heart ache with how much he wants it to be true. 

They are two mages in love in in a world that hates them but right now they’re cast in silver moonlight and that world seems far away. Garrett’s lips are soft against his and his arms are warm as they pull him closer and Anders couldn’t think of anything else if he tried.  So when Garrett whispers to him that nothing will ever tear them apart, all Anders can do is kiss him and believe it.


End file.
